Stop Blaming EVMs: J&K CM Omar Abdullah Calls on Congress To Accept Poll Defeat

New Delhi: Dismissing the Congress party’s vehement objection to Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said that the party had no issues with the technology when it secured 99 seats in the Lok Sabha, but it is suddenly raising concerns after suffering a crushing defeat in Maharashtra and Haryana. 

The Chief Minister stressed that electoral machines are the same, irrespective of the election result, and that parties should not use them as a convenient excuse for their defeat.

Here's What Omar Abdullah Said

"When you get a hundred-plus members of Parliament using the same EVMs, and you celebrate that as sort of a victory for your party, you can't then a few months later turn around and say... we don't like these EVMs because now the election results aren't going the way we would like them to," Abdullah was quoted as saying by news agency PTI. 

'Stop Contesting Elections If You Don't Trust EVM'

He said parties should not contest elections if they do not trust the voting mechanism.

"If you have problems with the EVMs, then you should be consistent in those problems," he told PTI while replying to a question about whether he thinks that the opposition in general and the Congress, in particular, is barking up the wrong tree by focusing on EVMs.

'Never Blamed EVMs'

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister said that he never blamed EVMs after facing defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Baramulla. 

"One day voters choose you, the next day they don't," he said and gave his own example of facing defeat in Lok Sabha polls while winning a majority in the September assembly polls.

"I never blamed the machines," he said. 

Following its defeat in the Haryana and Maharashtra Assembly elections, the Congress has raised concerns about the reliability of EVMs and questioned the election results. The party has called for a return to paper ballots.

(With inputs from PTI)